A Creek in Carolina: Artworks by Bobby C. Martin
March 26 - September 26, 2026
Image above: Bobby C. Martin, Mom & Mary Ann (The Redhead), 2018
About this Exhibition
Nationally recognized artist Bobby C. Martin (Muscogee Creek) presents a solo exhibition tracing the pathways connecting ancestral Mvskoke homelands to Indian Territory. Through encaustic, collage, maps, hymns, archival records, and personal photographs, Martin reframes the visual history of forced removal as a narrative of endurance and return.
Bobby C. Martin shares that, “The images these artworks are based on are mined from the treasured archives of my own family’s photos. They tell generational stories of forced removals from beloved ancestral homelands such as North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama; governmental treachery; and ultimate settlement in what became new homelands in what is now Oklahoma. While those sad histories should be preserved and remembered as part of our national heritage, these works also seek to tell a fuller narrative of the resilience and strength of our Mvskoke people through the lens of my family history. We have not disappeared or gone extinct, as many conclude, but have survived to become a thriving tribal success story that I hope to reflect in these artworks, told through personal family experiences.”
“I hope you can identify with the people in these timeless American images, and reflect on your own family history in ways that make us realize that we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.”
– Bobby C. Martin
Gallery Selections
Preview a few of the exhibition artworks in
A Creek in Carolina: Artworks by Bobby C. Martin
Martin works from his Martin Mountain Studio in West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma, where archival maps, ancestral stories, Mvskoke language hymns, and family photographs form the foundation of his creative process. These materials become more than historical artifacts; they become living guides. Through layered encaustic, pigment, charcoal, and wax, Martin transforms maps and documents historically used to impose borders, removal, and control into potent sites of reclamation. His works reveal the land as a keeper of memory and as an active participant in the Mvskoke people’s ongoing story.
In Martin’s hands, land and lineage are inseparable. His compositions pull viewers across time, from the pine forests of the Southeast to the allotment maps and family lands of Oklahoma, revealing the emotional, spiritual, and cultural threads that bind these geographies. His work challenges the viewer to see maps not just as neutral tools of geography, but as instruments of power—and, through reclaiming them, as instruments of healing.
About the Artist
Bobby C. Martin, an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a full-time artist, curator and consultant who works out of his Martin Mountain Studio near West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma. An artist deeply influenced by his Native American heritage, Martin’s work explores memory and history in the form of artworks based on his own historic family photographs, often combined with maps, tribal language passages of Christian hymns and scripture, and other documents related to his Mvskoke tribal ancestry.
Martin’s artwork is exhibited and collected internationally and has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His work is in many museum collections, including the Philbrook and Gilcrease Museums in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the British Library in London, U.K. His work as an independent curator includes two national touring exhibitions, Return from Exile: Contemporary Southeastern Indian Art, and Altars of Reconciliation.